Two Acts: (by timydamonkey)
Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 4, and I am not making any profit out of this story. It is written as a fan, for other fans, and for fun only.
Author's Note: This started life as part of a story of Persona 4 from Nanako's point of view. It started off well, then started to get muddled in terms of when events happened and to sound like a passing game summary. So, for now, I've scrapped the rest and taken a part from near the end of the story. Hopefully I will at least finish THIS segment. It's not finished yet, and I don't know how many chapters it'll be. Not many, I suspect. One or two more perhaps? Maybe more but seems unlikely. Reviews are welcome.
One day, big bro and her father have a really big fight.
Nanako's scared. She's never seen him this angry before, and he's waving around a note. Nanako tries to see it now, tries to read it, but she doesn't want her father to see this attempt and the two of them are keeping it out of her line of sight.
Big bro doesn't speak for a while, he always knows when to go silent, but then he starts spinning a tale that makes no sense, about TVs and killers (and she doesn't get it, that killer got caught months ago because nobody's been killed since then), and she sees her father get angrier and angrier at the lie.
Nanako doesn't like lying, but for a moment, she wishes she could tell big bro without words that if you really, really have to lie, you can't make them outlandish lies. You don't lie about unicorns or things some people don't believe in, even if you do.
And Nanako knows big bro has to be lying, because it's impossible.
She's struggling to catch their conversation, but she grasps enough to realise her father's taking him outside and she's smart enough to realise that that might just not mean 'outside the door'. She's outraged.
Her father says they won't be long, he'll be back soon, they just have to talk. Nanako thinks that they're already talking, it's fine that they're talking, even if it's upsetting her. If she's upset they won't do anything too bad.
Right now, Nanako's feeling like she doesn't know her family. It makes her feel horrible.
When her father and big bro leave, she sits and watches some TV. She looks at the clock, and it's getting really late. She should be going to bed. She's tired, and she rubs her eyes tiredly, but pinches herself in the arm.
She's scared. She doesn't want to be on her own again, not now, not with knowing something's wrong and being unable to tell what it is. Nobody tells her anything, so she picks things up on her own, and what she's picked up is that this is really serious.
There's a knock at the door. It's a very quick knock and she wonders why – it sounds urgent.
She stays quiet. She's not allowed to answer the door.
"Anyone home?" a voice from beyond the door asks, and it sounds really weird.
"Got a package, it's kind of hurting my arms." The man's voice is strained. She almost hadn't recognised the voice, but it's clear now. She's answered the door for him hundreds of times.
"Sorry!" Nanako says and unlocks the door, staring up at him. He's carrying a huge cardboard box, looks unsteady on his feet and stares at her. Nanako feels a little uncomfortable, but she's polite enough to simply say, "You're here really late."
The man laughs but it sounds wrong, like he isn't really happy. "Sorting offices, you know, they can be a bit lazy… wouldn't want to make my customers wait too long."
"Wow!" Nanako enthuses. "I bet lots of people are really happy you deliver stuff even at this time!"
"Yeah." He looks behind her, taking a look at the Dojima's living room, and seems to decide something. "Say, is your dad home? I think this'll be a bit heavy for you."
He looks strained by its weight, and the box is as big as she is. Nanako realises that she probably can't carry it herself, and feels happy that he noticed. She wouldn't have liked to drag it inside by herself, even if her father isn't currently around to help.
"Dad and big bro are out," she says instead. She's crestfallen that they aren't around when they could help, but she won't tell them that.
Something flickers in his face but she doesn't understand it. "That's a shame," he says. "Mind if I come in and put this down for you?" He smiles at her, but, like the laugh, something about it seems off. "Wouldn't want to leave a little girl with this great thing to carry."
"Yeah!" says Nanako, because she knows that she has no chance of carrying it in by herself.
"Excellent," he laughs. "You can sign the delivery sheet."
"Yay!" For all that she acts like an adult by helping around the house, people still normally treat her like a child. It's nice, she thinks, for somebody to see beyond that. She likes the delivery man. He's always happy to chat for a minute when dropping off packages.
The door shuts behind him as he enters the house with the box. He places it down on the floor with a huge sigh. He starts digging around his pocket, probably for his pen, and Nanako squats down beside the box. She doesn't recognise the handwriting, but she rarely does anyway. She goes to try and lift it just a tiny bit to see if she can guess what it is – anything to distract from her father and big bro – and is surprised to find that it lifts easily in her hand, more like a feather than anything heavy.
She realises the box is empty. "Oh!" she says, surprised. "I think you forgot-"
Then she doesn't say anything else for a while, because a hand has grasped her and she can't see or feel anything properly, everything feels wrong, and she thinks maybe she's moving, but maybe not, because maybe it's everything else that's moving, and then she finds she can't even hold onto that…
Nanako doesn't feel well.
"I don't like it here," she says, arms wrapped around herself. She feels cold and miserable and everything still feels and looks strange, like there's a layer of film over everything. There's a man across from her, pacing the floor.
She starts to cry.
The man looks over and squats down in front of her. He looks like the deliveryman, but he looks far away all at once. "Don't cry," he tells her, hands hovering in the air as if he doesn't know what to do with them – reach out for her, turn away. "It's okay. We're being saved."
"I want to go home," she tells him. "I want my dad…" She pauses and thinks, and has a horrifying revelation. "He'll be mad. I'm not supposed to be outside at night."
"He won't care," says the man. "He'll be happy that you're back and everything's normal and safe again…"
"It was normal before!" Nanako says, scooting away backwards slightly, finally deciding that the man is scaring her and she'd rather stay away.
"You were on the TV. You would have been hurt."
"I've never been on TV! I want to go home!"
"You were," says the man more forcefully. He moves towards her again, apparently desperate to get her to understand something. "You were in danger. Don't you see? This'll make it right again."
But Nanako is seven, and she doesn't understand. She doesn't think anybody would understand him… he's like a bad dream, an inversion of the real deliveryman, who was nice and gave her smiles and compliments. This man babbles like a madman, and she's alone.
She hopes her father is looking for her. She knows that he loves her, but maybe he's busy chasing bad guys again and he can't help. Maybe he hasn't noticed. Maybe big bro hasn't noticed.
She turns away from the man, still appealing to her, and hides her face. She doesn't want to talk anymore. She wants to sleep and awaken in her bed, to that familiar, previously-frightening creaking.